Traditional degrees — with a career-making twist

Gary Ng likes flying more than most people. In fact, he likes it enough to dedicate the rest of his life to it.

Since 1995, Humber has partnered with the Canadian Professional Golfers’ Association to offer a diploma in business administration and professional golf management. Students get to spend time in Humber’s Golf Lab to work toward passing a CPGA Playing Ability Test.

By:DREW GOUGHSPECIAL TO THE STAR, Published on Thu Oct 04 2012

Gary Ng likes flying more than most people. In fact, he likes it enough to dedicate the rest of his life to it.

Ng is one of six students enrolled in a new joint program between Sheridan College and the Brampton Flight Centre. Over the next four years, he’ll earn a bachelor of applied business in global business management and his commercial pilot’s licence at the same time.

And once he’s finished the program, Ng should have no trouble finding work. The new partnership between the aviation school and Sheridan College came about in response to industry demand for new commercial pilots.

“I enjoy being up in the sky, therefore, I thought that flying passengers around the world could be very fulfilling,” Ng says. “Being a pilot is definitely what I have always dreamt of.”

Most commercial pilots today have university degrees in addition to flight training, says Chuck Minken, the co-ordinator of the new program at Sheridan. But he says pilots often pursue their degrees part-time while working. This program works in reverse, allowing students to take flight training while they’re working full-time on a business degree.

“The airlines now, in their recruiting, want people who have broader education than just commercial pilot qualifications,” says Minken. “They want well-rounded people who can solve problems, who are adaptable and agile and who can deal with ambiguity, and people who can be creative and who have good communication skills. So, we felt that a business degree would be a good match for pilots.”

The program is built around academics, with students taking their flight training in the summer months when their course work is finished. Key areas of study include global supply-chain management (purchasing, transportation, distribution and logistics) and international business affairs.

“The good thing about these students is that they’re very focused,” says Minken. “They know exactly what they want to do and what they want to achieve in life, which is not the normal thing for every university student.”

The concept of offering an academic program that also gives students professional accreditation in a given field has proven very successful at Humber College. Since 1995, Humber has partnered with the Canadian Professional Golfers’ Association (CPGA) to offer an advanced diploma: Business Administration — Professional Golf Management. Like Sheridan’s new combined business degree/pilot training program, the professional golf management diploma is specifically geared to give students a direct pathway to their dream career while building a broad set of business skills.

“This program is designed to prepare students for the operation of a golf facility. They can operate all areas of the golf operation,” says Ray Chateau, co-ordinator of the program at Humber. “They’re graduating into golf professional roles.”

The three-year program includes a work placement component that boasts a 100-per-cent placement rate, says Chateau. Students work at golf courses between April and October when academic courses have wrapped up. They also spend time in Humber’s Golf Lab to work toward passing a CPGA Playing Ability Test, while studying a range of courses balanced between business fundamentals and golf course management.

Experiential programs tailored to a specific field are beginning to crop up in more traditional academic areas, too. This fall, Ryerson University in Toronto launched a new bachelor's degree in history with a museum studies option. It’s Canada’s first undergraduate program to feature this option.

Arne Kislenko, the director of the undergraduate history program at Ryerson, explains that students can take enough museum studies courses to graduate with a minor in museum studies, but that the focus of the degree is on the historian’s craft — on preparing students to be experts in history.

“We understood that to distinguish ourselves we had to be inventive,” Kislenko says. “We want to attract the students who want to become an expert. We’re training students to use their historical skills in the workplace.”

Ryerson’s history degree program is designed to allow students to acquire skills that will better position them in the job market, with courses such as curating practices and heritage resource management available to students who want a career in museums. Students will also have work placement and internship opportunities, further focusing their path from the academic realm into the workplace.